How Long Web Video Still Need to Go with Plugins

--Will HTML5 Video Take Over? How Long Web Video Still Need to Go with Plugins?

The actual video codec conflict continues, the new HTML5 does not help. Related parties of the debate begin to dig deeper into issue. In an extended blog post, Microsoft Corporate VP Dean Hachamovitch reiterated Microsoft’s full support of H. 264. Hachamovitch said Microsoft is releasing the plug-in for Chrome users to display H. 264-encoded HTML5 movies. The move is really a counter to Google’s earlier announcement it would remove support for H. 264 in future versions of its web browser Chrome, relying instead by itself open-source WebM movie format for playback associated with HTML5 video.

The video codec war aroused question about the near future of standards-based video on the internet, as publishers tend to be either forced to select between H. 264, that is supported by Microsoft’s IE9 as well as Apple’s Safari browsers, and WebM, that is backed by Mozilla’s Opera, Opera and right now Google Chrome. On the other hand, publishers can decide to support both, which would drive up the price of encoding and storage space of multiple movie assets. Or they might just do exactly what they’ve always carried out, which is to keep delivering web movie through Adobe’s Flash player on the internet and encoding within H. 264 for Apple iOS along with other connected devices.

No perfect solutions so far, different browser manufactures, like Google and Ms, are building various browser plug-ins to ensure the widest available support of the favored format throughout all browsers. When it announced it had been pulling support with regard to H. 264 within Chrome, Google said it might be doubling down upon support of WebM via browser plug-ins it was making open to IE and Firefox users. And Microsoft says it's already built add-ons with regard to Firefox users that desire to display HTML5 movie in H. 264.

Whilst video plug-ins for web browsers may quell some short-term issues about HTML5 video delivery, they do little to resolve the long term issues about the near future of web video delivery. H. 264, whilst widely adopted with regard to Flash-based video shipping and on linked devices, is still encumbered through the threat of licensing entire body MPEG LA at some point demanding fees because of its use. And WebM, whilst open source, has some issues of its; as Hachamovitch highlights, Google hasn’t indemnified the ones that use WebM, that could protect video publishers in the threat of obvious litigation.

Hardware support is also serious problem, particularly in cellular devices. Most devices currently available have built-in component to accelerate H.264. But no luck for other HTML5 video formats as hardware designs as always lag behind software advances, it takes time for mobile processors to well support WebM videos.

Many publishers tend to be keen on the thought of standards-based video shipping, but before fixing the above problems, adoption of proprietary formats like Adobe’s Flash to delivery web videos will continue. There is still a long way to go with plugins for web video delivery.